[piosenniel]

: [img]smilies/redface.gif[/img]oc - Bird! You are your own best audience!!! You crack me up!!::
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Pio dove far beneath the waves, the knife clenched in her teeth. When she had reached a certain depth, she put out a small mental call, one she had not used since childhood days playing with her cousins in the surf.

Oarni, Oarni!!!
Spirits of wave and water,
Come out! Come out!
and play!!

Light filtered green and moving in the water as Pio waited. She was at a depth that the action of the waves did not affect her. She swam a distance toward the ebon-wood ship and called again. The sea seemed empty around her,an effect, she thought of so much evil having entered this area.

Then in an instant, like a watery whirlwind, she was caught in the swirl of a tight moving vortex of water.

'Who calls us? & to these waters, they feel sick and deathly!', demanded a silvery voice in her mind.

The whirling stopped, and Pio focused on the ring of creatures which encircled her, their eyes curious, and reserved. Long, green hair drifted in the water like sea weed. Their faces and torsos those of trim young women, bodies narrowing down into long muscular scaled appendages ending in large fish-like tails.

'Do you not remember me?' she asked. 'We played when I was younger along the northern shores.'

They drew closer to her. 'Ah, little slow swimming Pio. We remember you. But what are you doing here where the waters grow dark and begin to feel foul? & why have you called us. Not to play!'

'I need your help. I must reach that black hulled ship and soon. My friend has been imprisoned there. And I must see to an heir of Aelfwine, if he is still true to the Light I will assist him, but if he is evil, I will kill him.'

They put their hands on her and smiled and she could see the pointed little teeth that she remembered. 'So fair and so deadly', she thought to herself.

'We will help you as we can. And if it prove that such as he has turned to darkness, then throw him down to us. Ever have we held the remembrance of Aelfwine dear, and none shall mar it.'

They secured her with their arms and moved her with great speed toward the ship, coming right up to the hull at its stern.

Surfacing in the shadow of the great ship, they began to lift her up for the climb to the deck. She motioned them to let her down. 'Let us wait for the cover of darkness', she whispered.

'What better to defeat Darkeness than itself!' they laughed, and dove with her beneath the hull to wait.

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: piosenniel ]